


Softer Shades

by anthean



Series: Softer Shades [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Era, Hijinks & Shenanigans, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nerdiness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-24
Updated: 2013-06-24
Packaged: 2017-12-16 01:04:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/856000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthean/pseuds/anthean
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five times they held hands.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Softer Shades

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by this quote from the Brick (Hapgood translation, pg 982):
> 
> "Jean Prouvaire and Combeferre pressed each others hands silently, and, leaning against each other in an angle of the barricade, they watched with an admiration in which there was some compassion, that grave young man, executioner and priest, composed of light, like crystal, and also of rock."
> 
> Thanks to Seaberus on tumblr for the emotional support.

_4 January, 1830_  
  
"Monsieur, it's my poor sister, my dear Olivie, she's in labor and we have no time to lose," cries Prouvaire, wringing his hands wildly. "I fear she'll die if she does not see the doctor in time, and to lose her and her child would break our old mother's heart."  
  
The police officer, baffled by this sudden attack of tragedy, opens his mouth to interject, but Prouvaire tramples over him like a histrionic elephant. Combeferre doesn't know whether to applaud or to drag him away before they can get into more trouble. "Oh, it was awful," Prouvaire continues, "the hemorrhaging—do you know anything about childbirth, sir?—blood soaked through the mattress and onto the floor!" It's hard to tell in the snow-dimmed light, but Combeferre fancies the officer is turning pale. "I ran for my friend the doctor right away, but he fears the birth will be difficult, that the baby is breeched, or-"  
  
Combeferre has never performed on the stage, but he recognizes a cue when he hears one. "Yes, an unnatural rotation of the child in the womb is certainly possible," he says, pushing up his glasses and hoping he looks like a respectable doctor instead of a 23-year-old medical student, "but the severity of the hemorrhage suggests the possibility of _placenta accreta_ instead." Prouvaire gives a well-timed whimper of horror and clutches at his heart, and the officer's countenance is becoming somewhat fixed. "In the first case, successful delivery may still be possible depending on the angle of presentation of the baby, but in the second case it may be necessary to deliver the child by way of a longitudinal incision through the abdominal wall and into the uterus, which of course requires more unorthodox tools, a 12-inch surgical knife being paramount, as well as a specialized pair of forceps designed to firmly grasp the child's head. Of course, the survival of the mother is highly unlikely."  
  
Prouvaire, eyes wide, warbles with distress; the officer is near swaying on his feet. "On your way, then," he finally mumbles, and Prouvaire shoots off down the street, but not before pressing a few coins into the officer's limp hand with a teary cry of thanks. Combeferre runs after him, careful of his footing on the snowy paving-stones.  
  
They slow after a few streets, Prouvaire's quick breaths turning into quiet chuckles. "That was wonderful!" he says. "I commend your skill at improvisation. _Placenta accreta_ , was it? Marvelous." Prouvaire's eyes are very bright, and his face is flushed from exertion. He bumps Combeferre's shoulder with his own and clasps Combeferre's hand briefly, grinning at him with unabashed delight.  
  
Combeferre's cheeks hurt with the cold and the effort of not smiling back. "He will remember that we passed," he says.  
  
"I know," Prouvaire replies, expression abruptly sober. "I'm hoping he'll be too embarrassed to mention it if anyone asks, and the bribe will likely help."  
  
As one they look down at Combeferre's leather medical bag, not full of large knives and arcane instruments but instead heavy with cartridges and a few pistols. "We will have to hope you're right," Combeferre says. "Perhaps a less memorable performance next time, though?"  
  
"I'll do my best," Prouvaire says, smiling again, and they hurry on through the snow.  
  
 _29 July, 1830_  
  
Combeferre winces as his lolling head thumps against the wall behind him, then hisses as the motion sends spikes of pain shooting along the bayonet wound across his ribs. His hands are pressed so firmly to the wad of cloth over the gash that his heartbeat throbs in his palms. Outside, the commotion of battle has slowed, but the tailor's shop that is their makeshift infirmary is full to bursting with the cries of the wounded. More distressing are the low murmurs and quick footsteps of the medical students as they hurry from casualty to casualty, treating those who might recover and making the rest as comfortable as they can, their hands steady as they pick wooden slivers from wounds and tie neat knots in bandages.  
  
"Combeferre!" a voice cries, and Combeferre rolls his head towards the sound. It's Prouvaire, cravat loose and waistcoat torn, a spray of blood across his face. Some of it might be his, but Combeferre lost his glasses hours ago, hurling himself away from a falling beam, and can't quite keep his eyes focused. "What's the news?" he croaks as Prouvaire kneels by his side. "Has the fighting stopped?"  
  
"Yes, yes," Prouvaire replies. His hands hover in the air as though he can't decide where they're most needed, finally coming to rest on Combeferre's forearms. An exhausted tear runs down his cheek, smearing the blood that's drying there. "The fighting has stopped, but there is talk of a constitutional monarchy and Enjolras is furious. Combeferre, you're hurt, has no one seen to you? Thévenet!" he shouts across the room. His face is pinched and wan, and his shoulders heave with quick, worried breaths.  
  
Dried blood has glued Combeferre's fingers to the cloth at his ribs; he pulls a hand free with a jerk and wraps it around one of Prouvaire's. "Thévenet is dead. Joly lives, but he's tending Barrande." Barrande's leg had been shattered and his stomach pierced by splinters in the collapse of a portion of the barricade, and him a workingman with three children. He will certainly lose the leg, but his children may keep their father if Joly is allowed to work. "The cut is not deep, and my ribs turned the blow, see, the bleeding has almost stopped. I can wait until those with more severe injuries have been treated."  
  
Prouvaire presses his free hand against the cloth at Combeferre's side and ducks his head against Combeferre's shoulder before straightening up. "All right," he says. "here, rest. I will hold this. But if no one has looked at your cut in a quarter hour I am dragging Joly here myself. And then I will tell Enjolras of your attempts at self-sacrifice."  
  
Combeferre twists a smile; his face aches. "That's fair. Only stay, please, if you're not needed elsewhere." He clenches his hand around Prouvaire's as tight as he is able, willing his grip not to slacken. Across the room someone sobs with pain. Prouvaire squeezes Combeferre's hand, and they wait.  
  
 _22 November, 1830_  
  
The chunk of sandstone cracked open under Combeferre's lens has an odd discoloration along its ventral surface-- a mineral deposit, perhaps; Combeferre frowns and adds a note to his sketch. Although the day is nearing its end, enough light shines through Combeferre's west-facing window that there is no need to light the candles yet. Across the table, Prouvaire—Jehan, really—hunches over a messy spread of papers, scribbling rapidly-lengthening passages with one hand and pushing the other through his hair. From his mutterings, the text he's so frantically producing could be equally an inspirational pamphlet for Enjolras or an apocalyptic poem, or both at once. He's forgotten his cravat today, and he probably hasn't noticed that his shirt is missing a button near his third rib. Combeferre notices.  
  
Jehan has been in a mood these past few weeks, punctuating spells of frenetic activity and eloquence with distant looks that encompass more than the world in front of him. He seems to be contemplating everything at once, and on the verge of sewing his patchwork observations into an elevated whole. Although always prolific, Jehan's productivity has near doubled, and Combeferre is loath to interrupt his reverie.  
  
The shadows have lengthened on the wall; the faint setting sun picks out the red in Jehan's hair and touches on the small scars, the work of barricade shrapnel, that freckle the side of his face. Combeferre doesn't mean to stare, but the intensity of Jehan at work arrests the eye. He looks back to his diagram of the sandstone. There's a sketch of a _Montifringilla nivalis_ wing in the margin that he doesn't remember drawing, the work of his wandering hands and distracted mind.  
  
His movement must have awakened Jehan from his trance. Jehan sets his pen down, slowly uncurling his fingers and grimacing. He's been writing the whole afternoon, so motionless he's probably gathering dust, and his hand is no doubt horribly cramped. He looks up, catches Combeferre staring, and smiles, and the smile is the answer Jehan has been assembling, given to Combeferre like permission.  
  
Combeferre pushes back his chair quietly, unwilling to disturb the dusty silence that has settled over the room, and takes soft steps around the table to where Jehan waits for him. He presses Jehan's hand between his own, massaging the stiffness out of each digit and digging his thumbs into the hollow of Jehan's palm. Each bone of Jehan's wrist is a pebble under his fingers, and the line of his thumb and forefinger describes a flawless arc. When Combeferre finally looks down, Jehan is gazing up at him, eyes half-lidded and mouth parted.  
  
Combeferre falls to his knees.  
  
He strokes across Jehan's palm to the wrist, traces each thin vein and follows the fine cords of tendon up his arm. He finally drags his fingertips along the inside of Jehan's elbow, and Jehan slumps against him with a sigh that is almost a moan, head falling forward to rest on Combeferre's shoulder.  
  
The room darkens as the sun sinks behind the rooftops, but the blush that spreads down Jehan's cheeks and splotches across his clavicle is still visible. Combeferre presses a long kiss to Jehan's neck and Jehan moans again, his throat vibrating under Combeferre's mouth.  
  
 _17 May, 1831_  
  
Combeferre scrabbles frantically at the bedclothes, pressing his face half into a pillow with a gasp. Jehan's discarded waistcoat is caught beneath him, and its horn buttons dig into the scar along his ribs with Jehan's every thrust. He drags the waistcoat out and flings it blindly aside, then grabs desperate handfuls of sheets and shoves himself back on Jehan's cock. There's just enough room between his hips and the mattress for Jehan to get his hand around him, and it only takes a few strokes before climax seizes him and he shudders to completion.  
  
Jehan stills a moment above him, letting Combeferre come back to himself, then pushes forward again. His breath raises goosebumps along Combeferre's shoulders, and as the roll of his hips speeds he murmurs exquisite profanities into Combeferre's ear-- "You're _lovely_ , Combeferre, your hair is the shade of a thrush's wing in dappled summer sunlight, the curve of your back is like the curve of a st- a stone long smoothed by running water, every poem ever written should be about how glorious you are when I fuck you, can I— can I— _ah—_ "  
  
" _Yes_ ," Combeferre chokes out, and Jehan clamps his teeth on the nape of Combeferre's neck and spends. He collapses onto Combeferre's back a moment later, driving him roughly into the mattress.  
  
Combeferre lies in sated stupor for a few minutes, ribs laboring under Jehan's weight, enjoying the warm physicality of the body draped over him. Jehan laves the bite at Combeferre's neck with slow kisses and broad passes of his tongue, and slowly the pain begins to fade. Their breaths dance in rapid counterpoint, then even in tandem to a slow, shared susurrus. The sweat and heat of Combeferre's fisted hands have left deep creases in the sheets.  
  
Finally Jehan grows too heavy, and Combeferre begins trying to turn them. He kicks his feet, eliciting a startled grunt from Jehan, and manages to roll them to their sides such that their positions are reversed, Jehan curled in on himself and Combeferre curved around him. A happy shiver runs up Jehan's spine, and he bumps his head gently back into Combeferre's nose in thanks. When they lie like this, Jehan sleeps easier, his long limbs settling quickly into deep stillness. Nocturnal commotions in the street fail to wake him, and when they do he reaches for Combeferre without opening his eyes. They move together in the dark, languid and unhurried and silent, sometimes succumbing to sleep before reaching fulfillment.  
  
Now Jehan gropes behind him for Combeferre's hand, pulling it across his body and tucking it close to his chest. After sex Jehan is alert but lazy, mind as eager for activity as ever but muscles loose and bones too heavy to raise from the bed, and so he traces strange asymmetrical shapes and composes poetry letter by letter across the plain of Combeferre's palm while he waits for his thoughts to slow. Combeferre drifts on the edge of waking, lulled by the flickering candles and the easy stroke of Jehan's hands.  
  
 _5 June, 1832_  
  
The murdered man's lonely head droops from the window; three stories below, the body of the murderer sprawls on the paving stones. A pool of blood widens on the street, stretching right-angled rivulets between the cobbles, dark and shining in the garish light of the torches. Enjolras blazes between the two dead men, and by his speech and visage seems to be already half departed from mortality. Combeferre feels as though the shudder of his heart might shake his limbs loose from his body, like he could add another story to their barricade with his own trembling bones, like he will cry. He swallows, and tastes bile.  
  
And then, Jehan is there. "Love, thine is the future," he repeats, squeezing himself into Combeferre's crevice in the barricade. Jehan's eyes are a little wild, but then, Combeferre supposes, this is a wild time. "Or rather, in love is the future created. Because we are here, and we love."  
  
Combeferre studies Enjolras, ethereal in the otherworldly light. "We do," he says, and it's a reassurance. The horrible shuddering within him ebbs, and he takes Jehan's hand. "The collective love of humanity, realized in each of us, but also…"  
  
"The collective constructed from the individual, and thus there is also the personal love, of each for each." Jehan's face is turned to the sky, but his body is pressed closer to Combeferre's than even their narrow crevice warrants. "And that, too, is among us, and between us."  
  
That morning they had coupled in Combeferre's rooms, in the star-speckled light of early dawn. Jehan, writhing beneath Combeferre on the bed, had gasped and sobbed as he climaxed, beginning to cry freely as they held each other, after—a quiet mourning that, while not unusual, always twisted at Combeferre's heart. "There is beauty in the contradiction, and I could never deny myself the experience of an emotion merely because I do not understand why I feel it," explained Jehan, the first time; Combeferre has never been sure that he understands. He had kissed Jehan's salt-stained cheek, his jaw, the corners of his eyes where the tears welled and caught, until there was salt between their mouths and Jehan's tears had subsided. Though the sun had risen, no direct rays fell on Combeferre's window, and the room lightened only gradually, as though reluctant to reveal where they lay entwined.  
  
Combeferre wants desperately to kiss Jehan again, to taste again the salt on his skin, left there by sweat rather than tears. A similar longing is plain on Jehan's face; they sway towards each other, hands clasped tight and bodies aching to merge. But the torchlight is bright and their corner not so shadowed as all that—and they might live yet. They might.  
  
Jehan leans on Combeferre's shoulder with a sigh that is no less resolute for its underlying contentment. The press of hands is enough, as is the heart that beats between their palms, steady and alive.

**Author's Note:**

> 1\. Anything that sounds remotely historical was obtained from Wikipedia.
> 
> 2\. I don't know if placenta accreta had been named or described in 1830. It...might have been? Shh, pretend it was. Similarly, while I tried to make all the obstetrics as accurate-sounding as possible, most of the research I did involved googling "19th century surgical instruments" and calling it a day.
> 
> 3\. Montifringilla nivalis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White-winged_Snowfinch


End file.
